Posting some stuff here, since there hasnt been a lot of icon-making activity in this thread lately (although bobdevis' icons from the last page were quite good looking)

Was messing around with the 5.25" floppy idea. Unoriginal, but I tried to make them look at least halfway "authentic" and I dare say they came out quite well in the large sizes.
Three zips attached - one with PNGs, one with icon files of up to 48x48 (for XP), and one with icon files of up to 256x256 (these should work on newer Windows systems - feel free to let me know if they really do, because I don't have one of those)

The ICOs have 16x16 and 24x24 as well, but those just look like crap, they're only there for compatibility.

I've updated the XP pack to have sizes up to 128x128, since apparently there are ways to get XP to display that size (and even if you don't, the icon file is still XP-readable - 256x256 makes XP flip out).

now here's a tribute to ancient monochrome machines... in three versions - amber, green, AND grey, for maximum retina-burning goodness.
Used original MDA/Hercules font (complete with aspect correction because I'm anal like that).

yeah, that was my first idea actually, to try representing an actual IBM CGA monitor, but this has already been done a few pages back in this thread I just wanted to emphasize the text really - a rectangular screen (surrounded by an even more elongated monitor frame) would be too small when squeezed into the square field of an icon.

OK, i've just gone completely off the deep end and decided to tackle the complete package...

This is probably way too complex (icons are supposed to be "simple"), but hell, the image of a PC/XT should already be "iconic" enough by its own right. Based on a photo I found on the web.

just think of this as the antithesis to all those "my computer" icons floating around, featuring the latest flashy systems This was still done in the same trendy vectorized "Apple" style though... guess that's the irony of it.

Looks absolutely fantastic I agree with your assessment, though; it's just slightly too complex to be a great icon, in part because of its angle. I think it might be a neat idea to remake the monitor only to face the camera directly, that would give the icon a nice frame (since I think the CGA DOSBOX icons are a bit too explicit) and still be simple enough to be instantly recognizable even at small sizes.

the only problem with a "monitor only" icon is that the monitor itself (frame included) has a roughly 7:5 aspect ratio, and occupies too little vertical space within the square icon field... so it instantly loses impact when placed alongside every other icon on the desktop/dock/whatever, that's why I personally dislike such icons.

Although perhaps this could work with the case underneath the monitor, both facing the viewer - no keyboard (that would also cut down on 70% of the detail work) ;) might try something like that later.

as for what the text should be, I've seen so many examples in this thread - "A>", ">_", "C:/" (?), "D:", "Z:", "DosBox", each has its pros and cons when it comes to being "iconic"... maybe I'll go with "Z:" even though it's not period-authentic (lol), since it's the only thing that more or less uniquely represents DosBox without actually spelling out the name and being too long.